Coburn and Uganda

By BEN SMITH

03/05/2010 12:50 PM EST

Tom Coburn is getting some local flack over a particular dramatic collision of opposition to new spending and a bipartisan policy push.

Coburn has a hold on a bill, backed by conservatives including Senators Sam Brownback and Jim Inhofe, that would provide Uganda money to, among other things, rehabilitate Ugandan former child soldiers.

The bill, worth a relatively modest $40 million over three years, contained an "offset" -- a cut to unrelated spending-- that was removed in committee, and Coburn is holding it the purely fiscal ground that it represents new spending.

The conflict -- like Bunning's attempt to block benefits -- is an example of the collision between one man's abstract fiscal principal and a sympathetic cause.